Uncategorized

02
Aug
2026

When Ryan Met Nebula

Ryan ducked as a heavy-duty stapler whizzed past his ear, launched by Mr. Mean’s left head. The Mall Manager was screaming about missing inventory, but Ryan’s mind drifted back to his first week at the Wilkerson Outlet District. He had been a scrawny trainee lost in the asteroid-belt’s sprawling food court when he first saw her.

Nebula was manning the counter at El Pluto Loco, looking bored enough to cry. A massive, gelatinous customer was vibrating with rage because his taco lacked sufficient cosmic spice. Just as the alien prepared to liquefy the storefront, Nebula’s third arm sprouted from her lower back, snatched a fire extinguisher, and sprayed the creature directly in its central orifice.

Ryan stepped in, not with a blaster, but with a stack of expired coupons. He told the stunned alien that the spray was a complimentary palate cleanser and handed over a Buy One Get One Free voucher for a car wash three galaxies away. The alien was so distracted by the math that it slithered away in a daze.

“You’re pretty fast for a hairless biped,” Nebula said, her third arm retreating into her shoulder. She handed him a burrito that felt suspiciously like it was vibrating. “Eat this fast, or it will start asking you for legal rights.”

Back in the present, Mr. Kind took over the manager’s body, offering Ryan a celebratory sticker for his silence. Ryan caught Nebula’s eye across the mezzanine. She winked and pointed her third arm toward the exit.

It was definitely time for an unscheduled break, provided the burrito didn’t gain sentience first.

(This story created by a California earthquake on August 1, 2026. Mangitude 2.8 – 7 km E of Wilkerson, CA, URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75409887/executive)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments
01
Aug
2026

Food Fight To The Death: Dough Zone vs. Salt Lord

The floor of the Cloverdale-Vortex Thermal Outlets in Sector 7-E was currently a slurry of neon mustard and radioactive salt.

Ryan dodged a flying cinnamon sugar bomb as the owners of Salt-Lord Pretzels and The Dough-Zone screamed in seventeen frequencies.

The Salt-Lord, a crystalline entity with a massive superiority complex, had just installed a gravity-well to pull customers away from the Dough-Zone’s kiosk. In retaliation, the Dough-Zone’s manager—a pile of sentient yeast—was pumping industrial-grade CO2 into the Salt-Lord’s air supply to make him crumble.

“Guys, the Mall Policy clearly states a three-foot neutral zone between kiosks!” Ryan shouted, waving his tattered map at the chaos.

“Policy is for those who lack vision!” the Salt-Lord shrieked, activating a tractor beam that accidentally sucked up Nebula’s entire supply of El Pluto Loco tacos.

Dover groaned nearby, his metal steps vibrating with existential dread. “Why bother? We are all just going to be crushed under the weight of consumerist spite anyway.”

The war escalated when the yeast pile launched a tactical fermentation strike, causing the Salt-Lord’s crystals to swell and crack. Desperate, the Salt-Lord opened a localized rift to the Outer Limit Factory Outlet, summoning a horde of Gluten-Eating Goblins to devour his rival.

The goblins, however, did not care about the rivalry; they started eating the mall’s structural support beams instead.

“Look!” Ryan yelled. “You have destroyed both your shops and the floor integrity of the entire sector!”

The two rivals paused, surveyed the ruins of their businesses, and then looked at each other with mutual, burning hatred. With a simultaneous huff of pride, they both signed a legal blood-pact to file for bankruptcy together, purely so Mr. Meankinder could not collect the rent.

As the floor finally collapsed into the thermal vents below, Ryan realized his paycheck was currently falling into a lava pit.

(This story created by a California earthquake on July 31, 2026. Magnitude of: 3.67. 7 km ESE of Cloverdale, CA. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75409452)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments
31
Jul
2026

Just Another Day at the Mall of the Multiverse

Ryan Random leaned against a holographic palm tree in the Sulphur Springs Sector, watching a sentient cloud of neon gas try to haggle over the price of a pair of non-corporeal socks at Payless Tentacles. It was a Tuesday in the Clover Cluster, which meant the geothermal vents were pulsing at a frequency that made Ryan’s teeth vibrate.

Nebula Norris drifted over from her shift at El Pluto Loco, tossing a lukewarm bag of Asteroid Nuggets onto Ryan’s lap. Her third arm was currently sticking out of her lower back, using a tiny squeegee to clean her sunglasses. She looked bored enough to start a supernova. Ryan asked if she’d seen the manager, but Nebula just shrugged her three shoulders in unison, claiming she’d been too busy fighting a customer who tried to pay with expired lunar minutes.

Dover, currently in his compressed accordion mode, clattered up to them on his handrails. He let out a long, metallic sigh that sounded like a dying tuba. He told them he was contemplating a permanent Out of Order sign because a pack of toddler-sized hive-minds had spent the morning using his steps as a slide for their acidic slime-trails. Being a sentient escalator was an upward struggle, he lamented, and he was tired of being stepped on.

The tranquility broke when Mr. Meankinder stomped into the plaza. Mr. Mean’s head was bright purple, screaming about a thermal leak in the wine-dimension annex. Mr. Kind’s head was simultaneously trying to offer Ryan a commemorative keychain, while Mr. Er just stared at a nearby fountain, wondering if water was a liquid or a feeling.

Ryan didn’t move. He pointed to a small, hand-written sign he’d taped to his belt. It read: Scheduled Maintenance. He explained to the three-headed manager that the leak wasn’t a leak; the local sommelier had just left the pressurized cork unscrewed on a bottle of Nebula Noir.

As Ryan took a bite of a nugget, the ground groaned. The mall’s gravity shifted forty-five degrees. Customers began sliding toward the Bed, Bath, and Way Beyond event horizon. Ryan sighed and grabbed a nearby railing.

“Just another slice of life,” Ryan muttered, watching a disgruntled Dover slide past him toward the abyss. “Hey Dover, while you’re down there, see if you can find my paycheck. I think it got sucked into the upholstery.”

(This story created by a California earthquake on July 30, 2026. Magnitude 2.7 – 18 km NNE of Upper Lake, CA. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75408977/executive)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments
30
Jul
2026

Dover Gets Stuck

The alarm at the Cloverdale-8 Ridge, a retail colony suspended over the Emerald Stream Sector, was screaming. Usually, this meant a localized supernova in the food court, but today it was worse. Dover had stopped moving.

“I am not moving another inch, Ryan,” Dover groaned, his metal handrails vibrating with existential dread. “I felt it. A microscopic imperfection on my forty-second step. It felt like a pebble. Or perhaps a soul. I must find it and achieve total planarity.”

“Dover, you’re an escalator,” Ryan said, poking a dented panel with his security flashlight. “You don’t have a soul, and you definitely don’t have time for a pedicure. There’s a horde of miserable Octo-toddlers stuck on your mid-section and they’re all crying. Soon they’ll get angry and start to eat your handrails!”

Mr. Meankinder stomped over. Mr. Mean’s head was bright red. “This blockage is costing us three million Space-Credits a minute! Fire the stairs!” He screamed.

Mr. Kind’s head patted Ryan’s shoulder. “You are doing a great job, Ryan, have a peppermint.”

Mr. Er’s head just hummed a confusing, rhythmic sea shanty.

Nebula drifted by, her third arm currently growing out of her left ear to hold a leaking cup of Jovian Juice. “I heard Dover is going through a phase,” she smirked. “I have some industrial-grade sander-bots in my locker. We could just grind him down until he is a slide.”

Dover let out a mechanical wail. “A slide? The indignity! I am a precision-engineered vertical transport system! I will not move until I find the Golden Burr!”

Dover began reverse-cycling his steps at high speed, flinging the Octo-toddlers into the nearby fountain of Liquid Nitrogen. He was single-mindedly scouring his own treads, ignoring the black smoke pouring from his gears.


“Look, Dover!” Ryan yelled, pointing at a discarded piece of pink chewing gum on the floor. “There it is! The Golden Burr! It fell off your forty-second step!”

Dover stopped instantly, his optical sensors zooming in on the blob. “It is beautiful,” he whispered, his depression briefly lifting. “I feel balanced. I feel whole.”

Then the gum spoke. “Actually, I am a sentient diplomat from the Gelatinous Galaxy,” the blob squeaked. “And you just stepped on my wife.”

Dover’s gears groaned. “That’s it,” he sighed, retracting his railings into his chassis. “I am becoming a ramp.”

(This story created by a California earthquake. Magnitude of: 4.26. 8 km ESE of Cloverdale, CA. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75407577)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments
29
Jul
2026

The High Chancellor of Condiments

Ryan scrubbed a glob of synth-mustard off his security shirt in the Silver Springs Silo Food Court, unaware that six-eyed nobles were watching with bated breath. To the Gloop-Sapiens, the circular motion of a human hand was the Ancient Sigil of the Un-Stained Prophet. Before Ryan could finish his lunch, the nobles prostrated their translucent bodies across the linoleum, declaring him the High Chancellor of the Food Court.

“I’m just trying to clean my uniform,” Ryan said as they hoisted him onto a hovering throne made of crushed soda cans.

Mr. Meankinder floated over, his Kind head beaming: “Ryan, wonderful news! You have secured a massive investment!” “

The Mean-Head snarled: “”But if they find out you’re just a teenager, they’ll dissolve the mall into acid! Do not mess this up, useless human, or I’ll fire you into a black hole!”

The Er head simply smiled wistfully at the mustard, as if finding a friend.

Dover rattled up on his escalator tracks, his metal railing vibrating with dread. “The Gloop-Sapiens require the Prophet to perform the Great Cleansing at noon,” the escalator moaned. “That’s in two minutes, Ryan. If you don’t turn that fountain into vintage grape soda, we are all dead!”

Nebula leaned against a McDoppler sign, tossing Ryan a packet of purple space-dye. “Fake it until you make it… or melt, Space-Boy.”

As the clock struck noon, the nobles began to vibrate at a lethal frequency. Ryan looked at the fountain, then at the dye. He tripped, accidentally pouring the dye into his own security boots. The nobles gasped as his footwear turned a royal, glowing violet.

“Behold!” Ryan shouted, standing on one leg. “The Holy Boots of the Future!”

The Gloop-Sapiens cheered and began their ritualistic dance, but Ryan’s relief vanished when he realized the space-dye was actually a high-grade industrial adhesive, permanently fusing his feet to the floor just as the mall cleaning drones arrived to steam-mop the area.

(This story created by an earthquake near California on July 26, 2026. Magnitude of: 3.4. 18 km SE of Silver Springs, Nevada. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nn00922397)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments
28
Jul
2026

BOGO for Gloom Beast

Ryan stood at the edge of the Sulfur-Steam Sinkhole Outpost in the Niland sector, watching a massive, tentacled Gloom-Beast tear through the storefront of Sand-Wich. The creature let out a roar that shattered every glass display in Sector 4. Security alerts blared, and Mr. Mean’s head screamed through Ryan’s earpiece to vaporize the intruder before it ate the profit margins.

Ryan didn’t pull a blaster; he pulled out a stack of coupons. Dover, currently folded into a vibrating metal chair, groaned. “It is going to swallow us, Ryan. It is the ultimate step down.”

Ryan ignored him, walking up to the beast. It was not attacking; it was shivering. Ryan noticed the creature’s giant, weeping eye was fixed on a Buy One, Get One Free sign for extra-strength nasal decongestant.

“Rough allergy season on the gas giants?” Ryan asked, holding out the paper.

The Gloom-Beast froze, let out a wet, honking sneeze that coated Ryan in lime-green slime, and gently took the coupon with a single suction cup.

“See? Just a misunderstood tourist with a sinus infection,” Ryan said, wiping his face.

Suddenly, the beast realized the coupon had expired yesterday and began charging its secondary laser-tentacle.

(This story created by a California earthquake on July 25, 2026 — another one in Niland, CA. Magnitude of: 2.95. 10 km SW of Niland, CA. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci40660970)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments
25
Jul
2026

The Ghost of Retail Past

Ryan sprinted across the calcified crust of the Niland Slab Sector, a desolate lunar parking overflow eleven kilometers south of the main Mall’s atmospheric dome. Behind him, a seven-foot-tall entity wrapped entirely in yellowed discount-aisle price tags and ancient magnetic tape let out a low, static-filled groan. It was the Ghost of Retail Past, a spectral manifestation of every failed store ever liquidated in the quadrant.

“I told you the Slab Sector was haunted,” Dover droned, his metal stairs clanking as he shuffled beside Ryan on his railing-appendages. “You just had to come out here for the vintage holographic pogs.”

“It is a collector market, Dover!” Ryan yelled, narrowly dodging a swipe from a hand made of sharp, rusted security tags.

The monster gained ground, its footsteps sounding like the crunch of dry cereal on a linoleum floor. It smelled of mothballs and desperate commission-based sales pitches. Ryan reached the edge of a dried-up alkaline crater, cornered by the beast and a pile of discarded poly-fiber mannequins.

The Ghost loomed over him, raising a translucent, clawed hand. It did not strike. Instead, it produced a crumpled, glowing blue slip of paper from its chest cavity.

The creature’s jaw unhinged with a sound like a paper shredder. “Do you have a valid loyalty card?” it hissed.

Ryan stared at the spectral receipt, then at his empty pockets. “No, but I have a coupon for half-off an interdimensional taco?”

The ghost let out a blood-curdling shriek of administrative fury. “No coupons on holiday weekends!” it roared, lunging forward just as Ryan’s security pager began to beep with a low-battery warning.

(This story created by a California Earthquake on July 24, 2026. Magnitude of: 3.08051838365773. 11 km SW of Niland, CA. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci40660970)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments
25
Jul
2026

Nostalgia Has Four Eyes and Eats Furniture

Ryan stared through the reinforced plexiglass of the Brawley-Void Observation Deck, watching the orange dust of the Salt-Silt Nebula swirl like a giant, radioactive tumbleweed. It looked just like the desert back home—same oppressive heat, same distinct smell of sulfur and disappointment.

Except the dust here is sentient and trying to file a class-action lawsuit against the ventilation system, Dover grumbled, his metal handrails clicking rhythmically. “You should not miss Earth, Ryan. At least here, the existential dread comes with a dental plan.”

Ryan sighed, clutching a lukewarm Slurpee-X. His nostalgia was interrupted by a loud squelch as his sometime-girlfriend Nebula Norris emerged from El Pluto Loco, her third arm holding a dripping, translucent orb. She tossed it to him, explaining it was “a discount Earthly Comforts souvenir from the Outer Limit Factory Outlet.”

Ryan shook the sphere. Inside, a miniature holographic projection of his childhood bedroom appeared. For a second, his heart ached with genuine longing. Then, the hologram glitched. The miniature Ryan in the projection grew four extra eyes, unhinged its jaw, and began eating the furniture while screaming in a frequency that made Ryan’s teeth itch.

“Is that what your species does for fun?” Nebula asked, poking the glass.

“No,” Ryan groaned, watching his tiny self swallow a holographic lamp. “It is a corrupted memory-loop. I never owned a lamp that bled when you bit it.”

Suddenly, the orb cracked, and the tiny, carnivorous Ryan leaped onto his nose, growling for more wood-based snacks.

(This story created by a California earthquake on July 22, 2026. Magnitude of: 3.61703988682385. 7 km S of Brawley, CA. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci40659802)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments
24
Jul
2026

The Trouble with Whimsy

Ryan sprinted through the Quicksilver Dust-Plains of Sector SS-18, desperate to catch Elder Glub before the monk reached the High-Security Wing. Glub, a crystalline entity from the Dimension of Pure Whimsy, had no concept of physics or private property.

“Stop!” Ryan shouted, his electric scooter whining. “That’s a Kinetic Displacement Field, not a trampoline!”

Glub bounced off the blue laser grid, giggling. “The walls are so bouncy, Ryan! Why do you keep the fun light-fences behind these No Trespassing signs?”

Dover the escalator clattered behind them, railings vibrating. “He’s going to get us dismantled. My steps are already retracting from the stress.”

Nebula Norris appeared, her third arm juggling a space-taco. “Leave him, Ryan. It’s performance art.”

Glub reached the Abercrombie and Droid vault and grabbed the emergency manual-release lever.

“Wait, that’s the atmosphere vent!” Ryan lunged.

“It looks like a lemonade lever,” Glub noted cheerfully, yanking it down.

As the mall sucked oxygen and mannequins into the vacuum, Glub clapped his hands. “Look, Ryan! The clothes are learning to fly! Retail is magical!”

Ryan grabbed a display rack, drifting toward the stars. “I really need a union.”

(This story created by an earthquake near California on July 21, 2026. Magnitude of: 2.78. 18 km SE of Silver Springs, Nevada. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nn00922060)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments
21
Jul
2026

The Spill of Rights and the Litigating Lava

Ryan Random faces a tribunal of Mr. Meankinder.

Ryan stood before the High Tribunal of the Coso Igneous Outlet Hub, clutching a stained receipt. A sentient puddle of lava named Mag-Ma was suing him for emotional evaporation after Ryan mopped him up near the food court fountain.

The Judge, Mr. Meankinder, wrestled with his own necks. “Death to the human!” Mr. Mean shrieked. “Give him a sticker for his bravery!” Mr. Kind countered. Mr. Er simply hummed a dial-up tone of confusion.

“Your Honors,” Ryan said, holding up a tattered mall map. “Per Section 42 of the Customer Conduct Code, any liquid shopper not in a designated bottle is legally classified as a spill. I did not assault him; I performed a mandatory janitorial service.”

Mag-Ma hissed, expanding into a searing wave of molten rock that singed Dover’s metal railings. Ryan quickly slapped a bright yellow Wet Floor sign onto the judge’s desk as the lava lunged.

“Loophole!” Ryan yelled, ducking behind the pessimistic escalator. “By law, you cannot touch me or the court property until this sign is removed by a certified supervisor!”

Mr. Meankinder froze, his three heads locked in a bureaucratic stalemate as the lava customer sputtered in legal frustration, unable to settle the bill.

(This story created by a California earthquake. Magnitude of: 2.93. 10 km ENE of Coso Junction, CA. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci40658258)

Posted by JOHNDEREVLANY, 0 comments